"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh

I wonder if anyone even tried to tell him that it was his own stank that sunk the Democrats back in November. Not that it would have done any good. To quote a great line from a book I’m reading, “It don’t matter which end of a jackass you talk to, ain’t nuthin’ goin’ in”.

Imagine that you have crashed a banquet held to celebrate the life and achievements of Bill Clinton. Imagine, further, that you are surrounded by the flower of the Democrat Party: actors, high-level political operators, wealthy donors, and glamorous hangers-on. Finally, imagine that in answer to a question from one of the guests, you sarcastically remark that you are the author of Finnegan’s Wake and that…the people at your table – one of whom is Irish - all believe you. Meet the Clinton brain trust.

When justice becomes nothing more than a totem warred over by hostile tribes, then it really is time to turn the lights down low, lock those doors and windows, and walk among strangers bearing the old Marine adage in mind: “Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”

Monday, December 29, 2014

The preshizzle drizzled on a couple's wedding by insisting on playing golf on a course where the ceremony was planned. Allahpundit brings the funny:

I’m tempted to call this The Most Obama Thing Ever but realistically it is and can only be number two on that list. To make it to number one, O would have had to tee off while standing underneath the couple’s trellis, the ball perched atop a champagne glass engraved with their initials, while the bride sobbed quietly in the background.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Maybe I’ll form a street gang in my area, and this will be our graffiti. Watch out Crips and Bloods! What you lookin’ at, MS-13? Don’t mess with the Roderick Spodes! (Or rather [shooting cuffs, and twirling silver-knobbed cane], “I say, you young slabs of damnation, bear in mind that if you seek to impede, retard or otherwise obstruct the Spodes in exercising suzerainty over the neighborhood, you will shortly find yourselves in the proverbial soup, what? Base over apex. Suffering the slings and arrows of something –something, I mean to say.”

Update: Or maybe I'll call them the Black Shorts...

“Don’t you ever read the papers? Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organization better known as the Black Shorts. His general idea, if he doesn’t get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator.’

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ I was astounded at my keenness of perception. The moment I had set eyes on Spode, if you remember, I had said to myself ‘What ho! A Dictator!’ and a Dictator he had proved to be. I couldn’t have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living at Clapham.

‘Well, I’m dashed! I thought he was something of that sort. That chin…Those eyes…And, for the matter of that, that moustache. By the way, when you say “shorts”, you mean “shirts”, of course.’

‘No. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. He and his adherents wear black shorts.’

Radical racist white guy Dr. Thomas Sowell breaks out the clue-by-four again to bat down some stubbornly persistent myths involving black people and the police. A sample:

Many in the media and among the intelligentsia cherish the romantic tale of an “us” against “them” struggle of beleaguered ghetto blacks defending themselves against the aggression of white policemen. The gullible include both whites who don’t know what they are talking about and blacks who don’t know what they are talking about either, because they never grew up in a ghetto. Among the latter are the President of the United States and his Attorney General.

Monday, December 22, 2014

And here's a lesser known tune, which features a curious dig at trade unionism (third verse: "You can stuff your trade Union bull-shit up your kyber/But you can't have my soul/Cannot have my soul today").

New York’s Mayor de Blasio continues to shine – like the proverbial dead mackerel by moonlight. God have mercy on the souls of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, two of New York’s finest. And may He comfort their friends and families.

It doesn’t matter: polls or no polls, fair polls or skewed polls, I’m not giving up my guns (and Second Amendment or no, same comment; the Second Amendment acknowledged an existing right, it did not create a new one).

You will no doubt recall the post from yesterday dealing with Michelle Obama, and her kvetching about someone asking her to get something off the shelf at Target. Doug Powers has absolutely the last word on the subject:

The Obama administration has found another despotic regime to truckle to, and, as usual, has gotten everything wrong, from the substance to the timing.

But don’t take my word for it; check out this condemnation of Obama’s Cuba policy in the Washington Post, of all places.

One wonders what’s next. Maybe the preshizzle will order Che Guevara’s visage added to Mount Rushmore, or have a statue of Salvador Allende erected in front of OAS headquarters in Washington. How about kicking in with an aircraft carrier or two in a joint China/U.S. invasion of Taiwan, or secretly agreeing to Turkish suzerainty over Israel (yeah, good luck with that one, Barry). If we had whimsically decided to pick some over-educated third world malcontent, seething with resentment over colonialism and besotted with Marxist clap-trap , to be our president, we could hardly have done worse than Barack Obama, for whom America has never been anything but an accidental, and not particularly desirable, birthplace.

“I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn’t anything new.”

Huh? Why is this necessarily an instance of racism? Maybe the person was short, or afflicted with arthritis, and was simply giving Mrs. Obama some credit for being a normal person who wouldn't mind helping a stranger in a small way. Also - let's face it - Michelle is built along the lines of an industrial crane, so why not ask her to help you get something off the shelf if you can't reach it, or it looks too heavy?

And then there's BHO:

“There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.”

Really? There's no black male - no black male - of the president's age who's a professional who hasn't suffered this indignity? I doubt that this even happened to Obama. And if it did, look where he's lived; mostly Chicago and Washington. Odds are that if a white person ever presumed to think of Obama as a valet parking attendant, it was probably some liberal politician or lobbyist.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

The GOP leadership can get through another year with its favorite wheezy excuse for not standing up and fighting for anything: Our hands are tied. Sure, the knots are a bit clumsy, but that’s to be expected when you tie your own hands.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Ed Driscoll considers the longing of some on the left for a Tea Party movement, and is highly skeptical of the likelihood of something like this happening.

I agree. The Tea Party was (and is) a genuine grassroots movement dedicated to changing the course of politics in America by challenging the ruling class (which consists of Democrat and Republican establishments). In that sense, it is revolutionary. So-called populist movements on the Left aren’t interested in changing course; they simply want to get to the worker’s paradise more quickly, and thus are concerned only with the pace of the march on the road to serfdom.

This is why the Tea Party might ultimately launch a successful revolution, but any leftist version will never be able to do anything but aid and abet a coup.

In short, the perfesser got overcharged by $4 for Chinese food and has threatened legal action.

After looking at the photos of both men (Harvard and the restaurant manager), I suggest a mixed martial arts, cage death match to settle the matter. Winner gets to display the loser’s skull in the window of his restaurant.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

So how did the president communicate his wishes to the Department of Homeland Security? Sources have revealed to Paco World News Daily (PWND) that the president pulled off his unconstitutional order via a simple document which was stuck to the door of the refrigerator in the DHS executive break room. A photo of this document was obtained surreptitiously and appears below:

Monday, December 8, 2014

Ace suggested the other day that, while we can’t vote all of our a**holes out of office, we can target a half dozen or so wobbly Republicans in the House and dump them by voting for the Democrat opposition. This wouldn’t be enough for Democrats to take back a majority, but it would send a strong message to pusillanimous time-servers like Boehner (who I nominate as Target #1) that there is a price to pay for ignoring the clearly-expressed wishes of their own constituents.

BTW, I’ve often referred to Boehner and others of his ilk as “time-servers”, but I think this is only partly apt. It’s true that they’re poltroons who are afraid that bedrock principles are impediments to more important things – like turning elective office into a cushy career – but it’s also true that they are, indeed, willing to fight for some policies; unfortunately, those policies are all too frequently the same things the Democrats want – amnesty being the prime current example – and these Vichy Republicans work in an underhanded way to provide genuine support for the concept, while blowing a lot of smoke about how the concept is implemented. Boehner et al don’t really have a problem with amnesty, because it’s what the big RINO donors want. These congressmen are simply in a bit of a huff because of the way Obama is bringing it about, so they use the constitutional overreach of the president to flog the rubes into voting for RINO politicians, and then these same RINO politicians wind up signing off on Obama’s policy anyway. Therefore, they’re not simply time-servers who do nothing for fear of their own shadows, but active enablers of the progressive assault on America who grease the skids for the country’s leftward shift through a combination of ideological legerdemain and disingenuous political theater.

This is why, for constitutionalists who believe in limited government, RINOs are so much more dangerous than Democrats. No matter how generously a Democrat politician ladles applesauce over his ideas, you simply know that he fundamentally views America as a giant daycare center for moronic children and will govern accordingly. RINOs do not hold voters in significantly higher esteem, but do their devious best to convince the “children” that the little dears are actually in charge, and that they, the RINO politicians, are merely their servants (even if ineffectual servants because of the Big Bad Wolf in the White House).

To put it another way, a Democrat has no reservations about boldly jumping out and yelling “Stand and deliver!”, while a RINO insidiously swindles you. It is little more than the difference between the highwayman and the receiver of stolen goods – except that the former will always be able to cultivate a certain rakish, romantic aura, while the latter will increasingly be viewed as nothing but a shifty, calculating “fence”, too white-livered to face the risk entailed in committing the original larceny, but perfectly willing to take a cut of the profits - money and power - through backroom machinations.

Which is also why Democrats will continue to enjoy an edge in elections as long as the present Republican establishment maintains its dominance in its own party (recent midterm results notwithstanding; after all, one can’t always count on having an insufferable boob as president).The highwayman is genuinely attractive to his base, given his base’s hazy morality on the subject of mine and thine, and the average progressive’s feeling (albeit often mistaken) that his own property and privileges are secure, no matter what. The fence, on the other hand, can only succeed for a time by concealing his true character, motivations and activities, which are inherently repugnant to a decisive segment of the base, and when discovered, generally lead to a widespread withdrawal from the political process by discouraged GOP voters at very inconvenient times – i.e., during elections, and especially during national elections.

Moral of this rambling post? Simple: if we wind up with Hillary Victrix in 2016, it will largely be due to the invertebrate wing of the Republican Party and its failure, or unwillingness, to offer any credible resistance to the excesses of the human preposterosity currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Frankly, I can't think of anything more potentially stomach churning than a flick about these two up-and-coming political shakedown artists and their inaugural canoodling session. If you want real presidential romantic drama, turn to Andrew Jackson and his wife, Rachel.

You know what else he said? "Republican candidates must be willing to 'lose the primary to win the general, without violating your principles.'”

Well, Jeb, I've got a couple of problems with that. In the first place, you RINOs always expect the conservative candidates to back down in the primaries, not the establishment toffs; in fact, you and your ilk have been known to torpedo conservative rivals, using the kind of dirty tricks one normally associates with Democrats (remember Chris McDaniel?). Secondly, a number of Republican establishmentarians barely squeaked by in the elections this year, and Karl Rove shut down one of his PACs due to its anemic performance in heaving GOP time servers into office. So we're talking about a thin market when it comes to the public demand for politicians whose main asset is the ability to work and play well with Democrats (who routinely steal their lunch anyway).

And frankly, I'd be scared that you really might not violate your principles - which, as far as I can tell, are centered on Common Core, amnesty, and that bitch-goddess of vaporish seat warmers everywhere, "pragmatism".

Anyhow, I'm perfectly willing for you to "lose the primary", as you might put it, even if it also means losing the general, because people like you are nothing but teeth in the wheel of the progressive ratchet.

Obama has apparently invited Al Sharpton to a meeting on race relations in the wake of the Ferguson shooting/looting/riots.

The only way this would make any real sense would be if Sharpton were being held up as Exhibit A of what’s wrong with race relations in America today. But we all know that isn’t the case. The Community-Organizer-in-Chief has found another cause he can use for the purposes of misdirection, and the Rev is the perfect smoke bomb for the occasion.

Yes, Sharpton is an evil clown, a semi-literate buffoon who has incited violence, championed frauds, and cheated everyone from his landlord to the IRS. But he gets attention and respect from the President of the United States Democratic base, and that is genuinely alarming, particularly since we are stuck with this pandering panjandrum for another two years. Too much more of Barry’s “post-racial” awesomeness, and our cities are likely to turn into smoking ruins.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Update II: I was going to write something about the obnoxious lefty tradition of instructing the faithful in how to propagandize their presumably oafish relatives at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but the insightful Mr. Bingley has already done the job, so over to you, sir.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

“Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as ‘thugs?’” asks Friedfeld. “It’s precisely this kind of ‘otherization’ that fuels the problem.”

Note to Mr. and Mrs. Friedfeld: are you sure you want to waste this kind of jack on your precious snowflake?

Interesting. What game is this slippery liberal playing? Is he acknowledging that Democrats focused on the wrong issue? Has he run the calculus and found out that the program, as currently structured, is a loser for his party long term? Or is he developing a cunning plan to head off Republican efforts at outright repeal?

One thing’s for sure: such is Schumer’s love for the cameras, we’ll eventually hear more from the horse’s mouth (er, depending on your perspective).

I guess we should be grateful that Obama is not a truly bloodthirsty tyrant who envisions concentration camps and mass executions. Yet there is undoubtedly something embarrassing about having to endure the dictatorial inclinations of a would-be despot who is so…Let’s see, what’s the phrase I’m looking for?...Oh, yes…There is something singularly embarrassing about living under the reign of an autarch who is so utterly candy-assed . For one thing, what does this say about the opposition? Am I supposed to be impressed that John Boehner is chattering like an indignant squirrel that’s been chased up a tree by a three-legged cat? Sure the squirrel is upset, but his mere squawking isn’t going to bring home the acorns. And what can we expect from Mitch McConnell? It isn’t only his physiognomy that suggests a frog that has narrowly escaped being gigged; there is an aspect of timidity to his temperament that impels him to seek the safety and comfort of the stationary lily pad over the deep and whirling waters of principle.

Well, we shall see. According to some recent reports, Boehner’s lawsuit may actually have legs; however, I continue in my suspicion that they are of the “peg” variety, and made of cheap plywood. Perhaps when all of the new Republican senators and representatives take their seats in January, they will, as James Boswell’s father said of Cromwell in a heated argument with Dr. Johnson, teach this king that he has a joint in his neck (I speak metaphorically, of course). Or possibly our political beclownment will simply continue apace, unimpeded by timeservers bereft of courage and unity. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Barry is moving ahead with his plan to ditch constitutional restraints on executive power by declaring amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants. If anyone ever needed evidence of this guy's alienation from America and the concept of American exceptionalism, this is it.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

In one long ranging piece--The New Republic's "The Obama Whisperer"--Jarrett is described as a schemer who has made it her job to undermine anyone she thinks threatens her position as Obama's main (and some say nearly only) adviser. She is even reported as having essentially chased former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel out of Washington.

The New Republic piece is not a flattering picture of the president's muse. She comes off as cold, calculating, self-promoting, and churlish. She is said to offer insincere, sycophantic compliments to Obama and is presented as the type of person who lashes out, viciously cutting people off at the knees and banishing those seeking to help the president and his administration if she is displeased with their efforts.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

But I can't let Remembrance Day completely get away without relating the story of Sir Thomas MacPherson, a very enterprising Scot who bluffed a German commander into surrendering 23,000 troops in 1944.

Three videos have now been uncovered featuring ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber practically crowing about the obtuseness of the American people, and how easy it was to pull the wool over their eyes – which doesn’t exactly make Gruber look like a genius, now, does it? Rather like a burglar who makes off with your cash and jewelry and then posts a selfie on Facebook flashing your grandma’s antique gold necklace and a silver-framed photo of your kids.

But that’s your typical progressive revolutionary, for you: just had to brag about how clever he was.

Update: Haw! Nice going, big mouth!

Congressional Republicans seized Wednesday on controversial comments made by a former health-care consultant to the Obama administration, with one leading House conservative suggesting that hearings could be called in response as part of the GOP effort to dismantle the law in the next Congress and turn public opinion ahead of the 2016 election.

"We may want to have hearings on this," said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an influential voice among GOP hardliners and a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in an interview at the Capitol. "We shouldn't be surprised they were misleading us."

Richard Brunt is baffled. He doesn't understand why Obama is so unpopular in the United States. Perhaps it's because he has confused the president with the tooth fairy, and seems never to have heard of places like Russia and the Middle East.

A letter to the editor at the Detroit Free Press (titled “America doesn’t know how good they have it with Obama”) from Richard Brunt, of Victoria, British Columbia, had a strong message for Americans who disapprove of their president.

“When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way?”

Brunt began the letter, saying, “Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections.”

He credited Obama with lower[ing] the unemployment rate and lower gas prices.

“America is leading the world once again and respected internationally...

Tell you what, Richard (by the way, may I call you Dick?). I'm all for sending Obama your way right now. We'll make the sacrifice.

Monday, November 10, 2014

It is one of the most powerful scenes in Ben-Hur: the moment Jesus brings water to the exhausted Judah Ben-Hur, and the Roman soldier raises a whip to strike Jesus, but lowers his whip in confusion and something like shame when he gazes upon the face of Our Lord.

Friday, November 7, 2014

This is the kind of self-delusion one tends to see in politicians who have been in office too long; their monomaniacal obsession with power eventually replaces whatever conscience and common sense they ever had, leaving the corpus intact and ambulant, but the mind and soul nothing but a lump of fossilized amour propre.

Shame on us if we let one man – especially this man – hold 317 million of us hostage to his pathological narcissism.

Update: Haw! Funniest post-press-conference Tweet comes from Stephen Green: "Dear @The Democrats: You realize you're going to have to play the same role Edith Wilson did after Woodrow's stroke, right?"

I would very much not have to live in interesting times, particularly in an era of around-the-clock politics, where people who simply want to live a normal life wind up having to pay constant attention to the doings of the governing class as a matter of pure self-defense; this is all rather like living in a neighborhood where burglars run rampant, and you can’t sit at your dinner table or watch television without having to keep an ear cocked for the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen, or the sudden squeak coming from the stairs in the dead of night.

And yet if we are to remain free, the price does indeed seem to be eternal vigilance, so I ask the question that appears in the heading: what happens next?

The GOP has scored a famous victory, but if it is ever again to be a viable political party that gets things done (or stops bad things from happening), instead of merely serving as a bucket of cold water that voters occasionally pour over the heads of their Democrat overlords for the purpose of getting their attention, then the Republican Party is going to have to genuinely stand for something, and that “something” can’t be limited to the wish lists of the Chamber of Commerce and wealthy donors (Amnesty! Cheap labor!), or claims of vague, inadequately-defined differentiation from Democratic political candidates – the former is a mercenary betrayal of the base by party pashas interested only in hanging on to their jobs, and the latter is little more than political tribalism (and let’s face it: in any kind of tribal confrontation, Republicans are more likely to be led by a version of F Troop’s Wild Eagle than by a Geronimo or Cochise).

The GOP should focus on first principles: smaller, less intrusive, less costly government; a strong military, and the non-profligate but decisive use of same to confront international threats to the U.S. and its allies; the use of the public purse to restrain an imperial presidency; and the repeal, or effective gutting, of ruinous and unpopular legislation, notably ObamaCare (and at this stage, I don’t care if they repeal the damned thing, or pass a new law entitled the Super-Plus-Awesome-Barack-H-Obama-Memorial-Affordable-Care Act which pretty much converts the program into the equivalent of a gaudy necktie that you throw in a drawer and never look at again).

More impressive to me than the taking of the U.S. Senate is the many gains at the state level across the country – not only because restoring sanity is a project more effectively built from the ground up than from the top down, but also because it deepens the Republican bench in future national political contests. This is molecular change, and it offers the best promise for rejuvenating the party long term.

The Republicans have won the Senate, and have scored amazing victories in many state races, as well (even here in Virginia, Republican senatorial candidate Ed Gillespie has made a strong showing, although I imagine when they finish counting the votes in Occupied Territory, Warner will probably come out ahead).

I expect that before too long, this victory will start to make a sadly familiar hollow sound, but I intend to enjoy it today, at any rate.

Monday, November 3, 2014

While I don't have any illusions that the GOP will, if it wins the Senate, display many (if any) heroic instances of intestinal fortitude, there is at least the satisfaction to be gained from seeing the execrable Harry Reid lose his job as majority leader. And I'd pay to see the facilities management people prying him out of the leadership chair to which he will likely epoxy his crinkly old ass as a last act of senile defiance.

Also, I fully expect Obama to continue playing the petulant prima donna, waiting for the multitudes to recover their previous worshipful admiration for his boundless awesomeness. Mark my word, he will end his term by sitting in the Oval Office, perhaps surrounded by the last handful of his die-hard supporters, clacking a couple of steel balls in his hand repeatedly, wallowing in paranoid self-pity, his face only lighting up when he recalls an imaginary victory over his detractors ("Ah, but the strawberries! That's where I had them..").

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Friday, October 24, 2014

But flubs like this don’t exactly inspire confidence in the mainstream media. I was listening to the radio on the way home from work yesterday, and some guy at ABC news said that the Ottawa shooter was armed with a Winchester lever-action shotgun.

Now, Winchester did indeed manufacture lever-action shotguns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but this line was discontinued in 1920 because it couldn’t compete against the far more popular pump-action shotguns. So unless the Ottawa shooter was armed with a very old weapon, he was, in fact, carrying a lever-action rifle.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

And the lack thereof. Kevin D. Williamson writes about the ominous increase in Gestapo-like raids by militarized police forces, and law enforcement’s apparently casual approach to, among other things, getting addresses right. A taste:

Bobby Griffin Jr. was wanted on murder charges. His next-door neighbor on Peck Street, Joseph Adams, wasn’t. But that didn’t stop the SWAT team from knocking down his door, setting his home on fire, roughing him up, keeping him tied up in his underwear for nearly three hours, and treating the New Haven man, who is gay, to a nance show as officers taunted him with flamboyantly effeminate mannerisms. If the events detailed in Mr. Adams’s recently filed lawsuit are even remotely accurate, the episode was a moral violation and, arguably, a crime.

Yeah, good luck with that lawsuit, Mr. Adams. Especially since the only witnesses were probably just the members of the SWAT team.

Ostensibly the congressman is talking about people“overreacting” to the threat of Muslim terrorism, but he used the “burning hair” metaphor so frequently in an interview on MSNBC yesterday that it’s difficult to avoid concluding that congressman McDimwitt has some kind of phobia about his own, admittedly striking, mane of white hair suddenly bursting into flames, possibly as the result of overtaxing his thought-box:

You have to wait and get the information, and I think the president, by not getting his hair on fire is doing exactly the right thing. We don’t know who did this, we don’t know if there’s a conspiracy or anything else. All the speculation you’re seeing in the press is done by irresponsible people in my view…

You know, we’ve just gone through the Ebola virus. That was the crisis of last week. Everybody’s hair was on fire about Ebola and suddenly a shooting occurs in Canada and suddenly our hair is on fire that somehow the Muslim hordes are going to come and get us; there’s no evidence for that.”

Democrats, as the party of government, have proven themselves all too willing to avert their eyes from the problems of government, to excuse or explain them away, or to announce some bold-sounding reform that never gets seriously implemented and is eventually forgotten. They’re all too enthusiastic about nodding in agreement to bureaucrats’ excuses that their failures can be solved with a bigger budget. They’re all too likely to believe that appointing some other D.C. staffer in a special czar position will suddenly create accountability, honesty, and diligence. They’re all too inclined to accept passive-voice “mistakes were made” explanations with blame assigned to “systemic” failures instead of particular individuals who failed to perform their duties, meet their responsibilities, and act with integrity.

The next step, of course, is likely to be more difficult than simply getting rid of Democrats: revivifying the GOP by replacing its useless establishment figures with principled constitutionalists. That task is likely to be a long, hard slog.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

About 40 years too late, apparently. Hal G.P. Colebatch remembers the late Edward Gough Whitlam – and not at all fondly. A small sample from a much longer indictment:

When Saigon fell in April 1975, Whitlam directed the Royal Australian Air Force not to evacuate Vietnamese who had worked for the Australians and whose lives were at risk. Huge Hercules transport aircraft flew out of Saigon and Da Nang empty. He even frustrated U.S. attempts to get them out.

…is that they always seem to be making war on intelligence. Andrew Klavan confirms something that we’ve all long suspected: the elite (at least, the present crop of that self-appointed class) are actually pretty stupid.

I don't know, he's probably got a lot of competition, including his predecessor, but he's in there fighting for the title. He has now briefly turned his brainstem from the contemplation of the horrors of climate change to the rise of ISIS, which he pretty much blames on you-know-who.

This horrible piece of legislation seems to have gotten lost in the crowd of the Obama administration's other disasters and scandals, but, for my money, it's still the number one domestic calamity hanging over the heads of present and future American generations.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Obama has appointed an Ebola czar – naturally, it’s a Democratic Party hack with no experience in health care, epidemics or disease containment – but the real issue is the president already has a czar. And, for some reason, no one’s heard a peep out of her during this whole crisis.

Meet Dr. Nicole Lurie, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response within the Department of Health and Human Services. The most interesting thing about her time at HHS seems to be that she may have been involved in a funding scandal that channeled money to a company controlled by a big political donor, and away from a company that was doing research on a drug that, among other things, shows some promise in treating…Ebola.

This is not only the most dangerous and incompetent administration in U.S. history. It also represents a unique blend of tragedy and farce – rather as if P.G. Wodehouse had co-written Julius Caesar with Shakespeare. One keeps waiting for Obama to hit bottom, but we’re apparently peering into a mighty deep hole – so deep, in fact, that we may never even hear the thud (or splash, as the case may be).

In this recording of a live performance by Art Tatum of a tune called Tatum Pole Boogie, Tatum applies his magical technique to the old eight-to-the-bar standard. Listen, and you'll understand why someone once wrote that Tatum's lighting quick fingers made it sound like two guys playing the piano.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Mark Steyn opines on the resurgence of militant Islam and the possible restoration of the Caliphate (and the imbecility of secular progressives like John Kerry, who persist in arguing that this religion can’t possibly mean what many of its adherents fervently believe it means).

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

For those unacquainted with Cheerwine, it is a kind of cherry soda made by a company based in North Carolina. When I was growing up, it was only available in the western part of the state, and was a special treat that we only got when we visited my grandparents; however, they now “export” it to other states, including Virginia.

Obama’s like a combination of three notable historical leaders; unfortunately, they happen to be Neville Chamberlain, Jimmy Carter and Salvador Allende.

Republicans are likely to score big in the upcoming elections, but it seems this will represent a public rebuke to Obama and the Democrats rather than an endorsement of Republican policy prescriptions.

Are there any Republican policy prescriptions, by the way? I mean, aside from watered down versions of Democrat policies? Mark Levin had a number of depressing observations to make last night on his radio program, including the evaporation of support among certain Republicans for repealing ObamaCare, and the continuing shiftiness on amnesty. Perhaps the most stunning of his assertions is that the Republican establishment is working hard to pad the GOP’s majority in the House, not to counter Democrats, but to isolate and contain representatives associated with the Tea Party. Perhaps voters are willing to rally around a banner bearing the motto, “At least we’re not that guy”, for one election cycle, but establishment pabulum doesn’t make very good mortar for an enduring political platform, and I fear that the Democrats will return, more menacing than ever, like the evil spirit mentioned in the gospel of St. Matthew:

"Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."

I've got nothing against the Bush family, personally. H.W., W. and Jeb at least seem to be basically honest, decent men. But they're not fit to lead a revolution, because they either don't grasp the extent to which progressive ideology has undermined our traditional values, or perhaps because, at some fundamental level, they agree with some of the progressive movement's imperatives. We don't need dynasties (whether the name is Bush or Clinton).

When even the floptastic grandee of Georgia goobery starts to look statesmanlike next to Obama, the word “success” should be on no one’s lips as a descriptive term applicable to the present administration.